great city names for the newbie city namer!

[borntoboogie 15]

One of the first things necessary when building a region is the name.  You have to decide what you want in it, where you want it and what kind of terrain.

I'm hoping people will post their suggestions for others to use!

I'm not very good at these so i'll let others start us off

[DFire870 2]

A good idea to name cities is to look at cities/towns around where you live. For example, in my region many of the city and road names are names of towns and roads here in Texas. When I need a name, I just open up Google Maps and browse the state until I find a name that I like.

[mayor of the manor 0]

I agree. Google Earth is where I get most of my names! Either that or I name them after friends, famous people and general people I come across. Famous people and the children of famous people are great because they usually have quirky names.

[borntoboogie 15]

I try and name mine after the type of landscape I'm building.  A coastal one will have sea / port or cape in the name.  If it's towards the mountains I'll go for forest/ wood/ glade etc.  Valleys I start with Vale etc and just build from there.

[mayor of the manor 0]

I try and look into the local language roots of where I set my city. It gives it a more authentic feel in my opinion so yeah it's always good to use words like vale etc.

I'll get some examples going! Personally I'll usually use similar names to those around where I live so...

Deerscoombe

Appley

Sanders Hill

Blakeness

Molemere

Friston

Maplefield

Hope these are of use or inspiration!

[borntoboogie 15]

Yep good ones

And theres always things like:

Newport

RIchmond

Davenport

Kingston

etc. 

these could fit in most cities really

[bbfan02 23]

I do mostly that, go into Google Earth, also when I decide to name all my streets, I also open up Google Earth and just randomly go to a place and see if some or all of the street names are good for my cities. You dont know how weird some of them are....

[Bluebeard 0]

I get most of my city names from household items and magazines.

[simzebu 20]

I go by street names. For example:

Lancaster

Corning Hill

Clinton

Hackett

Helderburgh

and so on. Or, local town names. Some generic-isj ones near me:

Bethlehem

Loudonville

Guilderland

East/North (we don't have a west or south, or just a plain) Greenbush

Ravena

[The_Hutt 11]

I remember one region I made where every city was named after a retailer at the mall.

- Abercrombie

- Aldo

- Brighton

- Franklin-Covey

- Nordstrom

- Penney

- Rubio

- Sanrio

- Talbot

- Williams

- Zales

Funky, but pretty darned cool!

[skyjuice 12]

I have just one big city Riverton City, but every little suburb or neighbourhood i usually name after hockeyplayer such Bertuzzi, Forsberg, Roenick, Ovechkin, then i maybe put something like city infront or after Ovechkin City. Yeah im a hockey/SC4-nird. Smae with avenues i have Yzerman Ave. and Lidstrom Ave. I name all my streets too, so i go with the NY kind of system too sometimes with numbers. Too many name otherwise.

And of course Jamican reggae producers and some jamiacan cities like spanish town i have new spanish town and new Kingston.

My fovorite Suburb is named after my favorite producer Coxsone Dodd. And i also have a friend called Dodds.

So just think of whats close to you and it will be good.

[LarksTonguesInAspic 28]

Although I go with water-oriented small town style names for cities, I name almost every bridge, river, freeway, etc. after either obscure characters from Chicago's mob history, or band members from progressive rock bands.

City names? Windy Lake, Gold Beach, Edgewater, etc.

Other stuff? Fripp Freeway, Great Wetton Way, and Belew Boulevard.

[Horus_Kol 118]

knowing a bit about how town names come about is always useful...

for example, Aber is commonly associated with river mouths in Wales and Scotland,

Kin is Scottish for "by" - so Kinlochleven is "By Lake Leven"

Caster/Chester are Roman fort towns across the UK

once you know some "components" for town names, then you can easily generate some for yourself...

Or, if you're feeling a bit Tolkienesque (as I do at times) create your own basic ruleset and apply it to placenames...

[trebuchet77 0]

Use a phonebook. Close your eyes, open a page, and point. Then tweak the name a bit to fit a city (Smith becomes Smithfield, for example).

[KingTitan 6]

Originally posted by: trebuchet77 Use a phonebook. Close your eyes, open a page, and point. Then tweak the name a bit to fit a city (Smith becomes Smithfield, for example).quote>

 

VERY COOL.......I do the same thing occasionally.....

My CJ name was a name that i thought was very cool sounding for a planet....and now that i started my CJ called PARAGON (Click Below), I realized that the name PARAGON is what it is...(GRAND and perfect in every way). Which, it is not....well, at least not yet, LOL 

I have used some town names for my cities within my CJ, however, I mostely just write down things I dream of. Literally!

[Bombshoo 3]

I usually make up a brief history of my region, where it would be geographically, and then use that to make up a name....My current city is a fictional former colony founded by the Douchy Of Courland on the East Coast of America. (They really did attempt colonize Barbados). I looked up names of cities in historical Courland and named it after one. New Windau. I also named some of the smaller cities after Indian tribes that would have been in the area, such as Mahica.

[Droftrah 2]

I always use the names of the areas around me, or streets that I've lived in before.

Laughanhill

Beechgrove

Tiree

Hartford

Newpark

Ashgreen

Greystone

Riverside  etc..

Usually to save me having to think for too long about naming, when all I want to do is BUILD!!

Although when it comes to making up names, you can never go wrong with the word "Bridge" in a name; Westbridge/Eastbridge for example and borntoboogie's points were good too, name cities after the area or focal point of the area (as is usually done IRL); Forest, Glade, Vale, Ridge; any word before them and you're onto a winner.

[PlannerTide 0]

I always name my cities alphabetically in a region so I have sort of a time line of what was built when.

Current Region = Avalon Coast (aka Northern California)

-Asheville

-Brighton

-Clevegas

-Daniels Beach

-Fairmont

[david1314 44]

This is more a general suggestion, but I've seen some quite ridiculous names for CJs and other cities and thin it should be addressed.

When naming a city, don't use two generic terms (i.e. river, mountain, hill, -berg, borough, city, town, -ton, -mo(u)th, bay, inlet, island, Fort...). It just sounds funny to suggest there may be a river or lake or something that is also a protruding rock... Cities are named in real life based on a single location (i.e. the generic term) and a place name (typically draws metaphoric likeness to something or is named for someone).

That brings us to place names. A person's name, a common likeness or image (i.e. castle, aspen, pine, Indian...), or traditional local names should be used for these. They can have fancy suffixes and prefixes added too (like Caroline becomes Carolina). If these are put with a generic geographic term, you get nice diverse city names.

The other thing for variety is a relative location...like North Dakota, Riverside, or even new, old, or any of their counterparts in other languages.

Finally, keep culturally consistent. Don't use germanic geographic terms with latin place names. "Jose-burg" just sounds strange, as do "Davidton" (jewish / anglo resp.), "Pierre Bay" (Fr. / Eng.), etc. The only time you should break from this rule is in colonial established cities when a local name for a region would be applied to the colonizer's original language and geographic terms...Colorado Springs (Sp. Eng), Kowloon Bay, Lake Ponchartrain...

And using that method, with about 3 names of people and a few local place names, it should be easy to fill an entire region with consistent, but diverse and varied city names.

[Horus_Kol 118]

Originally posted by: david1314When naming a city, don't use two generic terms (i.e. river, mountain, hill, -berg, borough, city, town, -ton, -mo(u)th, bay, inlet, island, Fort...). It just sounds funny to suggest there may be a river or lake or something that is also a protruding rock... Cities are named in real life based on a single location (i.e. the generic term) and a place name (typically draws metaphoric likeness to something or is named for someone).quote>

actually, there are a few real place names that do just that... the most extreme being:

Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch

St Mary's church in the hollow of the white hazel near to the rapid whirlpool and the church of St Tysilio of the red cave

But I agree with most of what you said

[mayor of the manor 0]

Yeah I also think you can use generic terms. Near me there is a town called Burgess Hill, I live in Lindfield, which is part of Haywards Heath and my local city is Brighton whilst I was born in Portsmouth. So yeah near me a lot of the names have anglo-saxon/germanic roots. You can also incorporate a makeshift attempt at language evolution like how (also near me) the area of Crawley was named due to the fact it was a forest clearing (leah) that was home to many crows hence Crowleah which evolved through dialect to Crawley.

[Insane Child of Bodom 1]

there is a city named LAKE FOREST...odd enough

[djrules5454 5]

Originally posted by: Insane Child of Bodom there is a city named LAKE FOREST...odd enoughquote>

 

There is also a city named Forest Lake.

Oh, and for the topic, ST used to have a name generator back in the "olden" days. Here are all of the names I've ever gotten from it:

Little Tony

Lower-Sarasota

San Menzel

Cozy Cuttle

Grand Tasi

Blue Los

Big Towers

Lower-Mistake

Green Newport

Black Roche

Shady Fruit

Lost

Long Calapax

Little Hopper

Fort Butte

Fort Hill

Gold View

Lower-Pomengranite

Black Fagoside

Little Fedora

Lower-Lewis

Little Jakub

Port Bond

East Quinces

East Ben

South Albert

Santa Ty

New Kumquat

Nova Moffa

North Badger

High Grad

Black Cyber

Dirty Hampton

Black Ty

Olde Hawken

Grand Joy

South Junction Ridge

Black Lonely

Los Three Bridges

Mount Gardner Glen Pass

Dirty Clog

Little Lucus

Terra Aurora

West Ever Plains

Stinky Boone

Stinky Peek

Red Lime

South Hell

Lost Three Bridges

New Pepsi

Somber Brantley

Cozy Pie

Green Qax

Lower-Sommer

High Jitsu

Stinky Lewis

Little Hook

Black Fruit

High Scrotey

Dirty Strawberry

Another great method is keyboard slamming (typing random letters and other characters). Trimblelina City was the result of a method similar to this.

[david1314 44]

Originally posted by: mayor of the manor Yeah I also think you can use generic terms. Near me there is a town called Burgess Hill, I live in Lindfield, which is part of Haywards Heath and my local city is Brighton whilst I was born in Portsmouth. So yeah near me a lot of the names have anglo-saxon/germanic roots. You can also incorporate a makeshift attempt at language evolution like how (also near me) the area of Crawley was named due to the fact it was a forest clearing (leah) that was home to many crows hence Crowleah which evolved through dialect to Crawley.quote>

My point wasn't not using them entirely, but not putting them back to back.

Like (as pointed out): Lake forest, forest lake, and incidently, Portsmouth.

They do exist in reality, but as those of you who have racked your brains to come up with one, you understand how rare they are.  Moreover, they're rarely a large city, they tend to be suburban towns where two geographic terms are each unique to the metro area....obviously, exceptions here too....

[LarksTonguesInAspic 28]

Originally posted by: david1314

Like (as pointed out): Lake forest, forest lake, and incidently, Portsmouth.

quote>

 

Illinois is big on these types of names. Forest Park, Riverside, Lake Forest, River Forest, etc.

A fun group from my previous cities (in 1 region)

VeloCity, VeraCity, AtroCity, CapaCity,...the idea is obvious. I also like absurd themes, like Townville, Burgtown, Villeburg and Town City.

[Nekroosi 3]

Some of "my" region names:

-Montauk

-Kronus

-Gersheim

-Miletus

-Fenris

-Southpoint

[mayor of the manor 0]

david1314: Ah sorry for my confusion! Yeah I agree with that. It's rare to find them here in the UK at least due to centuries of language shift and evolution.

Just out of interest, does anyone know if Salt Lake City is situated on a salty lake?

[fern244 1]

i like names that have valley in them

-Apple Valley

-Maple Valley

-Hill Valley

-whatever you want valley

[BC_Rich_Warlock 1]

what about The Biggest Little City of Townsville

well it's more of a slogan type thing

but u always can find some kinda opposites to put in city title

[BC_Rich_Warlock 1]

acutally mayor of the manor it does well it acuall by it not ON it

funny thing is i always see boat comercials based out of the SLC area, showin people fishing and what not but the lake is so salty nothin lives in it exept little brine

doesnt salt water rust boats?